Emma Wilby an Honorary Fellow in History at the University of Exeter. Her first book, Cunning
Folk and Familiar Spirits, has been published to critical
acclaim and review.

Shortlisted
for the Saltire Society Scottish History Book of the Year Award
2010

Shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Award 2010

“This is in my opinion the finest reconstruction of the thought-world
of somebody accused in an early modern witch trial yet made, making
sense of elements that most people would find wholly fantastic.”
Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol, writing in Pomegranate

The witchcraft confessions given by Isobel Gowdie in Auldearn, 1662,
are widely celebrated as the most extraordinary on record in Britain.
Their descriptive power, vivid imagery and contentious subject-matter
have attracted considerable interest on both academic and popular
levels. This book provides the first full-length examination of
the confessions and the life and character of the woman behind them.

The author’s discovery of the original trial records,
deemed lost for nearly 200 years, provides a starting point for
an interdisciplinary endeavour to separate Isobel’s voice
from that of her interrogators, identify the beliefs and experiences
that informed her testimony and analyze why her confessions differ
so markedly from those of other witchcraft suspects from the period.
In the course of these enquiries, the author develops wider hypotheses
relevant to the study of early modern witchcraft as a whole, with
recent research into Amazonian ‘dark’ shamanism, false-memory
generation and mutual-dream experience, along with literature on
marriage-covenant mysticism and protection-charm traditions, all
being brought to the investigation of early modern witch-records
for the first time.

Emma Wilby concludes that close analysis of Isobel’s
confessions supports the still-controversial hypothesis that in
seventeenth-century Scotland, as in other parts of Europe in this
period, popular spirituality was shaped through a deep interaction
between church teachings and shamanistic traditions of pre-Christian
origin. She also extends this thesis beyond its normal association
with beneficent magic and overtly folkloric themes to speculate
that some of Europe’s more malevolent and demonological witch-narratives
may also have emerged out of visionary rites underpinned by cogent
shamanistic rationales.

Gowdie’s confessions offer
probably the most challenging and mysterious material in British
witch trials. Emma Wilby subjects them to a long and painstakingly
minute analysis, which covers much folkloric material, but also
involves a great deal of speculative interpretation. Her book
will prove controversial, but is an important contribution to
witchcraft studies.The Katharine Briggs Award Judges
Report, 2010

This is a remarkable book based on remarkable historical
documentation ... an important work and essential reading for
all scholars of early modern witchcraft, and of the popular
culture of that period more generally.
James Sharpe, American Historical Review

An inspired and inspiring
assessment of this famous witchcraft case … Through Wilby’s
carefully crafted
system of speculation, built upon shards of evidence, the historical
actors and their belief systems become clearly and convincingly
entwined with our understanding of Isobel’s trial and the unique
traits for which it is so famous. The result is a deeply complex
understanding of the trial that is wholly attributable to Wilby’s
admirably creative thinking and painstaking research.
Janay
Nugent, The Sixteenth Century Journal In this bold and imaginative
book, Emma Wilby attempts to understand Isobel by taking us
deeply into her culture and spiritual worldview ... With meticulous
attention to detail, she reconstructs Isobel’s life as a poor,
illiterate farmwife: her cultural horizons within the fermtoun,
or small agro-pastoral community where she lived; her spiritual
worldview, which combined Christianity with many aspects of
folklore rooted in earlier cosmologies; and the likely sequence
of events that led to her arrest and imprisonment. Wilby gives
equally careful attention to the personalities and agendas of
the men who questioned her, showing how a unique combination
of personal, religious, and political ideologies came together
in the small interrogation room, culminating in her remarkable
performance ... No other author to date has come up with such
a cohesive interpretation of Isobel’s confessions. In the end,
this book does what good research should: provide us with provocative,
original interpretations and raise questions for further exploration.
Wilby’s book will be of great interest to folklorists, anthropologists,
historians of witchcraft, and of course modern Pagan Witches.
Sabina Magliocco, California State University, writing in The
Journal of Folklore Research

[Wilby's
research is] illuminating and thought-provoking, and will
therefore be of immense value to those scholars who venture
into the complex maze of witchcraft history ... Her book is
immensely rewarding, whether one agrees with every point or
not, and is to be recommended to anyone who wnats to have
a more intimate understanding of both this region of Scotland
at a particular point in its history and the interaction between
a highly self-aware Calvinism and older traditions of beneficent
and malicious magic.
Peter Maxwell-Stuart,
University of St Andrews, writing in Magic, Ritual, and
Witchcraft

This volume offers several rewarding approaches in the field
of witchcraft studies, particularly in its focus on a single
trial. With many recent scholars emphasizing the primary role
played by specific individuals and the local context of the
witch trials, such a micro-historical approach is exciting.
The prodigious amount of evidence that Wilby brings in allows
her to explore not only the lives and personalities of the
local laird, minister, notary, and alleged witch, but also
the unique interpersonal dynamic that may have arisen as a
consequence of their roles in the trial. Equally important
is Wilby’s exploration of the acknowledged, yet rarely researched,
possibility that some individuals’ accused of sorcery might
actually have believed themselves to be witches … The significance
of Wilby’s project lies in its reminder to scholars and novices
alike that, for some people, witchcraft could indeed represent
a lived experience. In emphasizing the subjective nature of
“visionary experience,” Wilby points out that while alleged
witches might not have actually flown to diabolical sabbaths
on wisps of straw, they might have experienced something very
similar through dreams and visions of flying, astral projection,
and spiritual transformation. In making such an argument,
Wilby restores agency and vitality to those individuals who
are so often portrayed as the passive victims of a state or
patriarchy-driven witch hunt, and offers a significant contribution
to the field of witchcraft studies.
Sierra Dye, International
Review of Scottish Studies

Wilby’s book is immensely engaging and rich with the promise
of allowing us a better understanding of witches and their
craft, particularly in the north of Scotland ... this book
makes an invaluable contribution to its field of study, and
everyone involved in writing about witches and witchcraft
should be sure to read it.The Journal of British Studies

The breadth and depth of Wilby’s presentation of Scottish
witchcraft, both as a historical and a religious phenomenon,
is to be highly commended – indeed, her study constitutes
a major contribution and advance in witchcraft studies in
general … Wilby writes in an engaging and accessible way:
the reader’s interest is maintained throughout, not least
by the ingenious way in which the web of detail is brought
to bear on the interpretation of the confessions. The overall
feeling is of a scholarly detective story, which is what good
study should be … Wilby’s reinterpretation of witchcraft is
likely to bring a breath of fresh air into some rather stultified
schools of historical research, which have tended not to see
any reality in the descriptions of witches’ activities. Scholars
of comparative religion are perhaps less likely to find the
conclusions so unexpected, though they may still be taken
aback by the level of detail with which Wilby has been able
to argue her case for the reality of the spiritual dimension
of witchcraft … Wilby has resurrected one form of witchcraft,
and by implication witchcraft in general, from being an invention
of maniacal Christian inquisitors into a credible form of
spirituality which must be considered by any researcher in
the field of comparative religion.
Clive Tolley, in Shaman:
Journal of the International Society for Shamanistic Research

This is the first book-length examination of Isobel’s
trial, and scholars owe a debt to Emma Wilby for her insightful
and in-depth examination of several key figures who played
a vital role not only in this trial, but also, it is argued,
in shaping and recording Isobel’s confessions … the treatment
of Rose and Forbes should be of interest to scholars of the
broader intellectual and religious developments of the “early
Enlightenment,” which gave the late seventeenth-century theological
and natural philosophical debates surrounding witchcraft and
the occult their vitality and urgency. Wilby’s discussion
here overlaps with other recent works, such as Michael Hunter’s The Occult Laboratory (2001), and suggests that there
may be more to the story of Scotland’s domestic theological
and intellectual motivations to explore the mysterious operations
of the natural, spiritual, and occult worlds than is sometimes
acknowledged. Certainly, this is an area ripe for further
research … Wilby pursues some fruitful lines of inquiry by
singularly concentrating on the case of Isobel. Isobel’s was
anything but a typical Scottish witch trial, and as a microhistory
of an aberrant and unusual case, this book owes much to such
classic microhistories as Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese
and the Worms (1976) and Natalie Zemon Davis’s The
Return of Martin Guerre (1983). The author sees in the
very particularities of Isobel’s case an opportunity to better
understand and define a latent culture and tradition visible
only through scattered, fragmentary, and easily distorted
or marginalized documents … This book gives us much to think
about, renewing some old debates and setting up new ones.Paul Jenkins, H-net Reviews

This is
a very important study of visionary experience and many of
Wilby’s arguments will have application far beyond studies
of 17th century witchcraft.
Peter Rogerson, Magonia
Online

Wilby has written an
interesting book based on exhaustive reading of the literature
related
to shamanism, and it can be recommended to all readers interested
in witchcraft research. As a whole, the book shows an original
and wholehearted attempt to interpret Gowdie’s confessions
in the context of shamanism.
Liv Helene Willumsen,
University of Tromsø, writing in Women's History Review

Like the theoretical
physicist, the historian of early modern witchcraft must speculate
and hypothesise in order to generate understanding of inaccessible
phenomena; and one of the great strengths of this book is
the precision and daring of its speculations. Witchcraft studies
should change as a result of the ideas this book contains
… The extraordinary range of materials that it brings to bear
on the Isobel Gowdie case will certainly change our understanding
of this particular case, as well as the ways that witchcraft
scholars are enabled to think about some of the most difficult
questions of witchcraft itself.
Lawrence Normand, Journal of Scottish Historical Studies

Here, for the first
time, Isobel Gowdie’s depositions are subjected to sustained,
and often brilliant analysis, and while many will raise objections
to aspects of this detailed and lengthy study, Emma Wilby
is to be congratulated on providing such a stimulating, well
researched and articulate account of one of the most important
and debated witch trials of the period … there is little doubt
that Wilby has brought to life, as never before, the magical
world-view of one marginalised individual from this period.
Peter Elmer, Northern Scotland

Gowdie’s
confessions are a source of considerable interest to historians,
folklorists,
theologians
and
students of literature; and The Visions of Isobel Gowdie
has much to offer scholars of all these disciplines. Emma
Wilby’s in-depth examination of the case, its contexts, and
possible
reconstructions of what may have lain behind the narratives
is a substantial investigation into one of the most interesting
witchcraft cases of the early modern period.
John Newton,
The Seventeenth Century

This study offers several
important questions, challenging paradigmatic views of early
modern
witchcraft through the author’s attempt to reanimate one
single story with its original human value, giving back to
those people, whose voices have been distorted, contaminated,
or simply not carefully received, an intense spiritual and
physical life.
Francesca Matteoni, Folklore

This book can be viewed
not only as an opus in the field of folklore, but as a very
interesting
addition to the research and literature on (re)enchantment
which scholars of contemporary Paganism have been exploring,
and may be particularly useful for those working on the imagined
and historical pasts that have influenced the Paganisms of
today … the honesty and clarity of Wilby's argument, the
extent of her research, and the eloquent fluency of her writing,
which vividly re-animates the lived experience of Isobel
Gowdie and her community, are impressive; and led to this
book deservedly being shortlisted for the Saltire Society
Scottish History Book of the Year Award 2010, and the Folklore
Society’s prestigious Katharine Briggs Award 2010.
Melissa
Harrington, The Pomegranate

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